Warframe Shattered Dreams
by mortimer012
Summary: The worst has come to pass. War ravages the tattered remnants of the origin system. Grineer and Corpus driven to the brink of destruction, Tenno all but annihilated, yet the few that remain refuse to surrender.
1. Chapter 1 Rude Awakening

gasping for air a single body amidst an ash covered waste barely clung to life.

She slowly forced herself upright, jet black hair in sharp contrast against her ghostly white skin, brushing some dust and dirt out from between the blues of her hair though she soon enough noticed a sharp chunk of metal in her side, forced through her black and white suit, staining it red.

looking over to the metal she touched it and quickly regretted it as a sharp pain flooded through her body, grinding her teeth she knew not to pull it out without someone around to help treat her injury yet as that thought crossed her she looked around to see if there was someone around but she fell silent as she looked at her surroundings.

her surrounding was simple a large expanse of burned land, piles of corpses lying everywhere, weapons and chunks of shaped metal equally as abundant, yet she recognized them, her enemies, grineer, but more concerning was the corpses of sentients, machines built to adapt and overcome any threat... with these ones around, that meant she needed to get out as soon as she could.

looking around she tried to find something specific, something she needed. "come on. where are y-"

she froze when she looked to her side and saw a severed helmet, fairly large, pitch black with gold accents, she slowly reached towards it, her hands shaking badly as fear and disbelief began to set in.

"u-umbra?" her voice was little more than a whisper as she held the helm, almost as though she expected some kind of a response from it though the only response she received was a drop of dark blood from inside the helm, splattering on the ground.

she dropped it after a few more seconds, her hands still shaking, she looked around again, a renewed sense of dread and vulnerability sinking in that only became worse as she slowly realized something.

she had no memory of why she was here or what had happened prior, she barely remembered the name of the being that helm belonged- no. was a part of, umbra excalibur, the names of her enemies and some other small things, but as she tried to focus her head throbbed intensely with pain and she failed to recall anything further.

it didn't take long for her afterwards to regain some degree of focus. she tried to rip off a section of her clothing to make a temporary bandage for her wound, working herself up she eventually grabbed the chunk of metal and after a few more painful seconds was able to rip it out, she couldn't recall exactly where she picked up the know how to treat her injury but she was grateful that she did though her actions seemed to catch the attention of something, she heard the telltale sounds of sentients coming closer, recognizing it and fearing it she tried to conceal herself amongst the dead till the monstrous killers were gone, minutes passed, she had lost track of time as she tried to keep her breaths quiet while knowing she couldn't wait too long here, it felt as though eternity was skipping by before the sentients finally left and she could limp away cautiously, though before she began her retreat she looked over to umbra's helm and grabbed it, taking it with her.

her mind was racing a mile a minute, trying to work out where to go as she slowly left the burned landscape and reached a more arid grassland, soon enough she set out to a destination she recalled being, safe, somehow.

'come on karin. keep going.' thought the teen, trying to keep herself motivated as she forced her way forward, keeping the helm pressed firmly against her chest, it somehow gave her some small degree of comfort despite the situation.

She lost track of time as she continued her slow march, despite the bandage and small amount of field treatment blood slowly began to trickle out again, slowly soaking the bandage before dripping down her side unnoticed.

Slowly the bright light of day began to dim out as she continued, giving way to new problems as the first glimpses of moonlight began to bath the area around her, movement was soon followed, she heard things in the distance and knew she needed to get to safety as fast as she could but the only safe haven she saw was a cave further off.

She picked up the pace, wincing slightly as she was reminded pretty quickly of her injury but she couldn't risk slowing down, not now.

The cave finally was close enough and she headed inside, trying to conceal herself behind a series of rock formations, her breathing heavy as she tried to look to the entrance between the rocks.

A pair of floating forms came close to the cave and one floated off though the other seemed to turn to the cave entrance, what looked like a creepy face made of stone with glowing blue eyes hovered in the air in front of the entrance.

Karin felt her heart skip a beat as she tried to stay incredibly still, hoping that the thing would go away, after some time of it hovering around further it eventually turned and floated off like its companion, having her sigh in relief afterwards, muttering something about annoying vomvalysts.

Sitting down she looked at the head of umbra, holding it before just hugging it as she stayed behind cover, trying to get a moment's rest to recover what little strength she could.

Unfortunately her sleep was disturbed by the sound of loud explosions outside, looking between the rocks she saw one of the vomvalysts zip over to the cave entrance facing something, pulses of blueish energy coming off of it to hit something though several metallic pellets were embedded into it, causing it to explode, a second noise was heard shortly after followed by another bright flash of light that temporarily blinded karin.

"Come on! We need to keep looking!"

"it's the middle of the night! We can't! It's too dangerous!"

Looking up she raised her brows in surprise, hearing voices that she felt she could trust somehow.

"If you want to run than fine!"

"That's not-"

"You can run back to cetus or keep looking for her with me. But i am NOT leaving without her!"

Slowly she tried to stand up. Remaining behind the cover for now before slowly inching over to the entrance, she knew those voices but she just couldn't remember.

"Look lets just head back. And continue-"

"Shh. there."

Karin froze in place, still holding the helm tightly though she began to wonder if she was wrong, if she had just hoped the voices were trustworthy, all she could do was wait, her body refused to move back not that it would matter.

She saw two figures quickly reach the entrance of the cave, aiming simple rifles at her, both of them were rather tall though one of them was much larger than the other, heavily armored, while his counterpart seemed to have a pair of points jutting out the sides of his head.

She knew them both and the sight had her smile before finally relaxing, rhino and loki quickly rushing over towards her, noticing the helm she was gripping so fiercely.

They both looked at each other before the bulkier one, rhino nodded and reached towards her, picking her up before they both headed to the exit and sprinted off as quickly as they could considering they seemed to have suffered some pretty harsh damage themselves.


	2. Chapter 2 Not Alone

Karin slowly woke up once more. Having fallen asleep in rhino's arms at some point during the journey though as she looked around weakly she realized that she was not only in some kind of large tent but there was someone next to her.

When she saw the figure next to her with a hand over her wound her first instinct was to try and jerk away to get some distance though that same hand at her side quickly planted itself down on her chest with enough force to keep her pinned and cause her some degree of pain.

"Don't move so much… since her loss she's always been more… aggressive in treating patients that aren't very cooperative…"

Looking to her other side she saw a teenager like herself sitting on a log, a distant expression in his eye, with a large scar across the other.

"You gave us quite the scare karin… you're lucky to be alive…" continued the teen though he focused on her and realized something. "You, don't recall me do you?"

A slow shake of her head was the simple answer though it did cause him to look over to the one that held her down, the larger armored figure finally moved her hand off to continue the treatment, a eery green light coming from that hand in moments.

"Did she suffer any kind of trauma trin?"

It slowly nodded, karin vaguely remembered that nickname and recalled the full name soon after though as she looked at trinity, the healer, she noticed that one of her arms and a good portion of her side was blown off, the fact that she was still able to be of use was a miracle of its own though the nod she gave caused the teen to sigh and shake his head.

"Great. Do what you can. I'll tell the others."

Trinity nodded and continued in silence, the teen standing up and heading for the exit of the tent, a momentary blast of direct sunlight blinding karin before he was out, she was silently grateful when the darkness returned as the entrance was closed

The one armed trinity moved up and seemed to do a quick examination of karin's head, specifically the back of her head, after she was done she stood up and headed out as well, leaving her there alone.

It took very little time before Karin became restless, forcing herself up she slowly headed to the exit, careful to not overtax herself despite the treatment she had received earlier, she could hear people outside, children, shaking her head she went outside.

The sunlight was the first problem, the bright rays quickly forced her to raise her arm to block it out though afterwards she looked around and was shocked.

She saw several other people, more than that she saw them with weapons. From shotguns to sniper rifles, she could have sworn she saw one of them carrying a rocket launcher on his back before someone came over to her, the same teen as before.

"Karin? You should be resting."

"I've had enough rest... Where are we?"

He'd frown momentarily at the question before remembering she had memory problems. "We're at Cetus. What's left of it anyway. The Unum's tower is still able to keep some degree of peace despite the, damage the sentients caused it."

She raised a brow, The Unum sounded familiar and he seemed to notice that before motioning for her to look somewhere, in the far distance a massive white tower stood tall out of the waters, a fair amount of gold lined its structure but what caught her attention was that one side of the tower seemed to have been ripped off and several dozen signs of explosives riddled the structure, ruining the formerly pristine white.

"It.. it's seen better days?"

Her attempt to lighten the mood seemed to have failed and caused the other one to shake his head. "Yes. it has.. Unfortunately we do not have the resources here to even try and repair it. Or any of our frames…. Let alone rebuild yours."

Hearing that caused karin to feel like someone had just delivered a firm kick to her chest, she grinded her teeth in pained anger before looking back to the other one who had taken a step back as he saw her hands start to glow brightly.

"Calm down Karin, we can't deal with more trouble right n-"

"Where's my ship?" 

He raised a brow at that though she repeated her question with a colder, more menacing tone.

"Its…. gone. After you were fired upon by the Hydrolyst and we lost contact with you Ordis went into a blind rage. He crashed your liset into one of the grineer fomorians after uploading himself into their network… he took control of one shortly after, the last confirmed information we have on him is that he took the fomorian to the main sentient fleet and fired on them… there's no way he survived the encounter."

Karin could hardly believe what she was hearing, her ship, her friend, gone, it couldn't be possible, she knew that her cephalon was, unstable, to say the least but to think that he would go that far, no, there had to be something, he couldn't be gone, he just couldn't!

"...karin."

He slowly moved closer and hugged her, her hands had began to shake again, the disbelief and pain of what she had just heard was just too much, first umbra was gone, now Ordis, it just, wasn't fair.

She didn't move, she wanted this all to be a nightmare that she could just wake up from, that she would wake back up in her liset, in that chair and that everything would be perfectly fine but no, fate wouldn't be that nice to her, this was all too real.

Others looked at the pair for a moment in curiosity, the Ostrons seemed confused and some took the wrong idea from it while the others that either knew or were tenno themselves had a rough idea of what was happening and left them be.

After a few more minutes he'd slowly let go of her before reaching a hand into his pocket "we. can't rebuild him but i know how attached you were to umbra so. I convinced the others to digitize what you had with you…" he'd take out a small metallic data tag and hand it to her, a simple material string had been worked through one of the smaller holes to make a sort of necklace for her.

A smile slowly crept onto her face as she took it before nodding in thanks and slipping it on though as she did her head hurt for a moment, only a moment though when it passed she remembered his name.

"Thanks Jax. I appreciate it."

"Don't mention it. Now come on. We need to get you back into a frame and out there. There are reports that the sentients are readying another attack on the tower and we don't know if it can take another big hit like that."

She stepped back and took a moment to work herself up for what was to come though as she did her head hurt again and she remembered bits of what happened on that field when she tried to return to umbra, a large blast ripped through most of his body during the transfer, she was barely able to stop it in time before a second one devastated the rest of him, the backlash of pain from both her own body and the link to umbra flooded through her, causing her to pass out.

"N. no. not again.. I'll support you from here but i'm not going back into another frame. Not again."

Jax raised a brow in surprise and tried to tell her that she needed to but her voice took on a desperate tone that frightened him, having him accept her refusal.

"Karin. What happened to you out there? I've never seen you like this…"

She quickly dodged the question, asking him what kind of forces they were to expect and despite how much he wanted to know what happened to his friend jax caved and told her.

"The hydrolyst. A small contingent of battalysts and conculysts. Apparently the grineer have been able to cause them some annoyance around one of the outer worlds and drag enough of their forces away to make this easier."

"When is the attack supposed to arrive?"

"Two nights from now. Though knowing them they are as likely to come tonight after getting more troops here."

She nodded slightly before looking to her hands. "Do you have an amp?"

Jax nodded before reaching to a device on his arm, pulling it off he handed it to her.

"Single shot and charge. Don't break this one? Its my last one."

His request caused her to chuckle before slipping it on, after moving her hand around slightly to get a good fit she looked back to him.

"Thanks. Where are the others?"

He motioned to a large tent in the distance before asking her if she was going to be alright, despite the yes she gave him he still seemed concerned but gave in and started to go somewhere else.

Jax looked over his shoulder though towards karin as she headed towards the tent with the others before shaking his head as he reached a large figure looking down at him, frost, primarily black with gold accents.

"Seems we're going to be having a rough few nights my friend…"


	3. Chapter 3 Moment to Rest

As Karin entered the tent she noticed that there were only three others inside, teens as well, one of them was asleep on the ground with a large ceno type hat on his head covering his eyes while the other two were tweaking things on their own respective amps.

The one that seemed to have been asleep pressed his finger against the tip of his hat and moved it up slightly, looking at karin in surprise.

"...I owe jax ten credits...you stubborn old woman."

"Hay!"

Her outburst caught the attention of the other two and it caused the formerly sleeping one to chuckle in amusement.

The one that had lost the bet stood up and went over, holding his hand out for a fistbump which she rather quickly gave him. "Good to have you back karin."

"Its. good to be back."

The other two also quickly went to greet her and soon enough they began to talk about what had happened while she was gone, they were at least able to help her remember more before the question finally came up.

"Why aren't you out there with umbra?"

Her joyful mood dropped like a boulder dropped into the sea and they all realized why she was here and not out there in a heartbeat.

"... im sorry about your loss."

She'd just nod for a bit before finding a place to sit and be alone, the others picking up on her desire for solitude quickly and left her be.

Karin would look at the small device containing the digitized helm of umbra for some time in silence.

Meanwhile jax had gotten annoyed with the other frontline tenno who seemed to enjoy comparing his more patient approach in the field against karin's who had a far more aggressive and volatile way of dealing with the enemy, or did anyway, he didn't bother to inform them of her refusal to get into a frame purely because they didn't shut up and give him a chance to speak.

He'd reached frost again and after looking at the large figure for a bit he decided he reached towards the pistol by its side, a Lex, another was on his other side though jax was focused on only one at a time as he moved towards a nearby table and began to disassemble the weapon.

The teen displayed knowledge- no, not just knowledge, expertise well beyond how young he looked, he had been able to in mere moments take apart the weapon and clean it before putting it back together again, tuning out the world around him as he did the same with the other Lex.

One of the Ostrons looked at him and raised a brow as he continued his work, hazarding a warning that he should be careful though jax only stopped and glanced over towards him, before nodding in silence and resuming, the Ostron felt uncomfortable momentarily as he saw the unnatural eye colors of the tenno.

He had taken less than a few minutes to do his maintenance on both the heavy hitting pistols though afterwards he grinded his teeth in annoyance, wishing he had taken his prime weapons with him the day everything went to hell.

Reaching to Frost's Cronus blade he carefully examined the edge, in his hands the weapon seemed quite a bit too large though he held it expertly, unfortunately not even maintaining his weapons could silence what happened.

" _Lay down your weapons Tenno...I don't want you to suffer…"_

Those words, echoed in a voice that he had trusted, that they had all trusted for so long haunted him, more so than seeing his brothers and sisters in arms blasted away.

Looking back to the tent where karin was in he felt envy. Not having remember what happened...

It took far too long before jax finally resumed his maintenance, looking for any kind of crack or sign of damage to the blade.

Luckily despite all the abuse the blade was still in rather good condition, it just needed a bit of sharpening and that would be easily taken care of nearby yet as he was headed off to get the tools for it he was called by someone else, an Ostron scout who was in a panic.

"Uh oh-"

"Tenno! They're here!"

Grinding his teeth as that news was dropped on him jax turned back to frost and quickly rushed over, barking at the scout to tell the others in the tent.

It only took a few steps to reach frost though when he did jax slammed his open palm on the cold black chest of his frame, his hand seemed to move into it followed quickly by the rest of his body, strands of bright blue light coming off of him in the process, despite it being a common sight in Cetus now it still unnerved some of the elders.

Frost afterwards took a small second to stretch his fingers before grabbing the dropped blade and rushing off towards the front line.

When the scout opened the tent entrance he didn't have to say anything, the others aside from karin knowing by now it meant if he entered, they quickly got up and grabbed their hats as they rushed out, karin took a moment longer to realize what was happening though quickly chased after them when she did.

Her mind raced in frustrated panic, it was way too early, was their intel wrong? The sentients were efficient but this.. It couldn't have been right.

She finally reached the gate and went outside with the others, roughly seven tenno in frames and those that were in the tent alongside her.

Unfortunately despite how much she hoped that it was just false info, in the far distance the sentient army had gathered, the colossal hydrolyst somehow being kept active during the day by the other constructs around it.

This. was not going to be a easy fight.


	4. Chapter 4 Battle for Cetus

The tenno wasted no time, quickly getting into their different positions to protect cetus, two of those in frames backed up somewhat before emptying out round after round into the distance with their snipers, trying to take out the sentients before they would be able to adapt to the weapons, two others though rushed forward to attack the sentients and keep them back for a time, karin recognised one of them, rhino, though the other one she couldn't recall despite the nagging feeling in the back of her mind that she knew that frame almost off by heart as it hacked and slashed at the sentients with claws for hands, an almost feral rage seemingly guiding its movement.

One of the tenno shouted at karin, snapping her back to reality and quickly having her join the rest of the others that didn't have frames at the back with the snipers, they all already had their hands towards the sentients, large beams of light seemed to slide off of their hands and impact against the sentients, blasting them apart bit by bit.

Jax though was further forward, having used frost's abilities to form a protective dome, he admittedly burned through all his energy reserves to expand the dome out so it would cover the entrance to cetus as well as the few tenno that were staying at range, leaving him exhausted on the ground trying to recover with the aid of trinity though even with her aid he was not going to be of much further use for quite some time.

Karin glanced over to him for a bit and shook her head, she remembered being called reckless but that took the cake by far even if it was to protect others though there was nothing she could do to help him out.

Shaking her head karin refocused on the enemy and tried to focus on those around the pair keeping them from really advancing, they needed all the support they could get right now, the dedicated support to the two frames despite being small did wonders in letting them stay ahead.

Some of the ostrons joined the tenno from the safety of the large protective dome made by frost, ignoring the chilling air in the dome as they tried to fire on the sentients with what weapons they had, the rest though were not willing to face this threat, fear having gripped them too firmly.

The initial attack against the sentients seemed to be going in their favor, at least that was until the hydrolyst came into play.

The massive construct sent out a large pulse out, the moment it hit the two frames keeping the sentients from advancing they both fell to their knees, they could feel their power sapped away in that instant, the smaller, more ferocious one of the pair was barely able to force herself back to her feet before one of the sentient conculysts smashed her aside with one of its large baton like appendages, the frame was sent flying for a bit before rolling aside and smashing against a nearby rock formation, rhino looked over to see the hit and her not get back up, he tried to keep his ground alone with his bo staff though the sentients were beating him back.

Jax tried to force his frost to stand up but he was only able to have it get to its knees, anything further was too straining on the drained frame, trinity on the other hand left him for a moment, rushing over to valkyr as quickly as she could, barely dodging sentient fire in the process.

One of the tenno snipers moved over to an ostron and gave him the large lanka sniper rifle he was using before rushing forward, grabbing the pair of ether daggers at his sides before vanishing from sight.

Rhino was pinned down rather badly by three conculysts and a battalyst was about to fire on him though before the shot could be fired Loki reappeared behind the construct and forced the daggers into its back, gripping tightly as it tried to force Loki off, with that problem momentarily dealt with karin took a shot at the center conculyst keeping rhino down, blasting it apart with her energy and giving the large frame enough freedom to force the two keeping him pinned down back.

With his friend freed Loki pulled the blades out and leaped away from the sentient, cloaking himself once more to deliver some unseen attacks on the sentients to ease rhino's load at least until his energy could begin recovering.

That didn't happen though, the hydrolyst raised one of its massive legs up, some kind of charge building up could be heard before it smashed its foot back down onto the ground.

The tenno opened their eyes wide for a moment before a large pulse of energy was sent out like a shockwave, smashing against loki, rhino, and anyone outside of the bubble, sending them flying back and hitting the wall around cetus rather badly, even those in the bubble were sent tumbling back somewhat, breaking their entire formation and allowing the sentients to advance for a time, completely unhindered.

Karin stumbled to her feet alongside those that weren't caught outside the bubble, trying to retaliate as best they could though most of the tenno that were in frames were caught outside and weren't going to be of much help till they had time to recover from their impacts.

Despite their best efforts though the sentients weren't even slowed this time, let alone stopped.

One of the sentients moved over to karin and the others, she saw it crush the skull of one of the tenno, the world slowing down for her as she saw the teen drop to his knees before slowly falling to a side, very much dead well before he hit the ground

A horrified scream came from next to her, as she looked to her side she saw another one of the tenno try to back away from the same sentient though it raised its arm high, intent on bringing it down for another swift deathblow on the girl.

'Move. you need to move.' despite her own mental shouting, trying to force herself to stop what was about to happen karin found herself frozen in place.

'You can't let this happen. MOVE!'

The sentient began to bring down its weapon, the tenno having nowhere to escape to in time and too terrified to use her abilities to retreat, the sight of seeing one of her brothers butchered mere moments ago in the flesh had gripped her fully as she stared down her coming death, karin though tried one more time, shouting as loud as she could to try and override whatever base instinct it was that had gripped her.

"MOVE!"

In the dark depths of her mind a deep voice echoed out, karin felt her body overcome by a rush of power that came with the voice. _"...gladly..."_

Everything happened in a blur, too quickly for karin or the others to register just what it was for a few seconds but the result was clear.

Karin was standing above her fellow tenno, gripping some kind of blade formed from her energy, it was locked firmly against the sentient's baton.

The others looked at her in shock, even the sentients stopped for a moment to examine this event, an angered expression came onto her face before she pushed forward, slicing through the baton before quickly carving the conculyst apart.

Karin turned to face the other sentients but something was wrong, her motions were not the same as before, a barely controlled rage almost seemed to cling in the air around her while her body moved with unnerving grace and purpose that would unsettle teshin himself.

The tenno that watched her could swear for a split second that they saw traces of energy coming from her body, outlining something in the air though before they could be sure what, arcs of energy would come from her and spark against the ground as she let out an unnatural howl that echoed out across the plains, a bright blast of light coming from her and blinding everyone before she bolted forward at the sentients. The constructs were momentarily ummoble and unresponsive, the blast of light was heavily laced with void energy that paralyzed them, leaving them very open for karin to carve a clean path forward, her attacks impossibly swift.

Finally the tenno recovered their sight and saw Karin carving her way forward, more than a few decimated sentient corpses behind her though it was clear she was trying to force her way forward to the hydrolyst.

Some overcame their initial shock and instead of questioning it decided to assist her to the best of their ability, sending a multitude of blasts out to the sentients in her way, though the sentients themselves also seemed to have overcome their paralysis and focused on her, assessing this new threat as too severe and unknown to not deal with as soon as possible.

It didnt take long before karin was pinned down by the sentients, barely holding her own with the mysterious energy blade but she was able to keep them occupied long enough for trinity to recover and treat valkyr, delivering as much energy to the frame as possible so she would be able to assist in the fight.

Valkyr luckily didn't need too much time to recover after she had received the energy from trinity. Forcing herself up to her feet she lout out her own hysterical scream, power flooding out from her hands before reforming her claws, rather quickly the frame rushed over to assist, carving through the sentients with reckless abandon.

The rest that trinity didn't need to treat soon enough returned to the fighting, clearing out the sentients near Karin and just in time, the tenno began to stumble, her strikes becoming less and less precise, whatever it was that happened to her was nearing its end, jax rather quickly left his frame, it was able to walk now at least but it wouldn't be able to reach her in time, the tenno ran as quickly as he could towards her, his smaller size making it easier to avoid the sentients, he actually slid under one of the sentient conculysts, tearing up his suit a bit but he was able to get to her and send a blast of energy out towards the conculyst before it was able to bash Karin's skull in.

The other sentients though turned their attention to him and was on the verge of killing him but instead he grabbed karin before his body faded out, shifting into the void and taking her with him, not like it mattered much since valkyr leaped to their position and clawed at the constructs with near reckless abandon.

Jax reformed a few seconds later inside the protective dome, out of breath and holding karin, trinity quickly rushed over as he put her down before carely removing the amp on her arm, slipping it back on his own before helping the rest in attacking the sentients.

The fight turned to the favor of the tenno slowly, but as the tenno carved and blasted apart the enemy the hydrolyst took aim at the Unum's tower, firing on it with everything that it had, deeming the situation irrecoverable already.

The tower suffered a few pretty severe shots before the last of the sentients were destroyed, the hydrolyst stopping its assault and letting out a loud howl before breaking apart, sinking into the ground without the influence of the sentients to keep it active

Everyone waited for several seconds, expecting some kind of second attack though none came, cheers rather quickly came from the survivors as they had pushed the enemy back this day.

* * *

 _Onboard one of the sentient cruisers holding stable orbit over earth sat the leader, hooked up to the sentient network, analyzing the data from the failed attack on cetus._

" _It seems they have developed some..interesting abilities now…"_

 _She finished examining the data, a sense of pride surfacing for but a moment though as she closed the feed she noticed a presence come into behind behind her, the infamous assassin._

" _Ah.. stalker… come for me at last?"_

" _You will pay for your crimes."_

" _My crimes? One day perhaps stalker.. But you are poorly mistaken if you believe you are to make me pay..come.. There is still a part of me that wants vengeance on you for what you did to them..."_


	5. Chapter 5 Aftermath

_Karin found herself floating in an empty abyss, a dull blue light surrounding her in this nothingness, streaks of black and gold laced in the light._

" _Where. Am I?"_

 _She felt weak, tired, her body ached for reasons she didn't understand though as she tried to move she felt something, a cold almost metallic hand on her shoulder._

" _ **Rest now…i will take care. Of everything..."**_

 _The tenno fell asleep moments afterwards, something in that voice making her feel safe._

Jax slowly wandered into the first aid tent, he himself had already received treatment and his frame had recovered its energy enough to not need assistance though inside karin and some others that were injured were laying on beds being treated by trinity who also seemed more lively and dedicated than she did before.

"She doing any better?"

The frame looked over and shook her head slightly as she was treating someone else.

"Damn… still no idea what it was that happened?"

She looked over to him and seemed to have some idea judging by the unsure head tilt she gave.

"What? Tell me than."

Jax focused all his attention on trinity as she sat down nearby, her chest shimmering with light before a tenno stepped out, a long haired teen with scars running down her one arm.

"It's… just an idea but remember the 'trauma' i said she received? There was traces of void energy coming from her and there still is..more than we usually do moreover, she, wasn't in control... from what i can find she was completely unconscious when, that, happened…"

Jax was surprised at that but couldn't figure out what trinity was trying to get at.

"If. she wasn't in control than what was?"

He could almost feel the urge to facepalm coming from her before she continued.

"Think, trauma that messed with her memories but didn't destroy them. She falls unconscious but her body reacted very quickly with abilities we've never seen our 'own' bodies perform. And that hate that was flowing from her… what else is that hateful and trained-"

"That's not possible…"

They both looked over to karin as she continued to recover. "Jax. she broke every bone in her arms and ripped the muscles in her legs. Kind of like whatever took hold is used to a much more durable and trained body than hers. And you can't deny that blade, not to mention that Howl…"

"It's not possible… It's never happened before.. What would make him special enough for something like that to happen?"

"Umbra is the only warframe that actively resisted, no, turned transference against us, he's the only one that was able to function without a transference link. He is the only one that maintained a degree of sentience and you cannot deny that… he was unique… we have no idea as to the extent of his abilities. What risks there really are with transfering to him…for all we know when he was destroyed she had either succeeded in transference with him or she was undergoing transference with him..it could have left… something...behind."

Jax sighed in frustration, she was right, they really just didn't know enough about umbra's unique traits, it could really be possible, but they had no way of finding out, at least for now.

"Alright. I'll tell the others, just do your best."

"I will."

He gave her a glance as he headed for the exit but she had already returned into trinity and was continuing with treating the rest, her words gnawing at his thoughts as left the tent.

Trying to push the thought aside jax focused more on their next step, thanks to the sentients failed attack the tenno were revitalized and that made them dangerous, few things could stop them when their spirits were high and they needed to make the most of this.

There was talk of getting off planet to try and find other survivors so the tenno could stand unified again but for that. They needed to get off world first which presented its own problem.

Reaching the center of the former marketplace, jax saw the others already in the middle of talks, still annoyed that they hadn't waited on him to first check up on karin, regardless he gently pushed a nearby ostron aside so he could join the tenno.

"We have no way of contacting the rest of the galaxy outside of the grineer and you know-"

"Yes i do. Thats why we take that from-"

"We've been over this. We cannot leave cetus unprotected."

Jax raised a brow at that, slightly annoyed that the others seemed to have forgotten what they did for so long. "why would it be unprotected… i'll take Richard and Veronica and take care of everything."

Everyone fell silent and looked at Jax, one of them asking who he was in shock, not believing that those words coming from the one that shouted the loudest they needed to keep cetus safe no matter what.

"If we stay here than we waste this chance, double the guards while we sneak into a nearby grineer camp, we'll, convince, the commander there to bring a ship over for evac before a sentient attack arrives."

"W, we need to use this opportunity to fortify Cetus and prepare for another assault-"

"I'm going to do this whether or not you all are onboard. I'm tired of being the one taking the punches, we have a breather here so tell me, are you going to curl into a ball and prepare for more abuse or grow a pair and fight back."

Some soft laughter came from behind jax as a tenno stood there smirking at him, bright red eyes and a bright red patch of hair between her otherwise black hair, the air about her just seemed to flow with pride, almost arrogant pride.

"You are trying to pick a fight.. Not a very Vazarin thing to do..the thrill of the fight wake you up? Being there in the flesh, staring down a sentient..."

He looked at her, not intending to answer that at all, instead telling her to go find richard so they could get this over with.

Veronica laughed as she turned and went of to find the other tenno though jax could almost feel the daggers being stared into his back, turning back he turned to the other tenno. "If you are going to get in my way than you better stand up right now…."

No one did. This, new side of jax not something that they experienced, few did, but it was something that unnerved them to a small degree but only because it reminded them that they stopped fighting, sure they survived and fought to keep from dying, but they haven't really lived in what felt like an eternity.

"We are tenno… we are not meant to hide in a hole like cowards...if Teshin was here he would disgusted at us."

Jax turned again and started to walk off to his frame. A very large chunk of him wondered where in the void that just came from while the rest of him felt proud, probably for all the wrong reasons, regardless as he reached frost his smile came back, transfering into the chilling frame.

After he was in he took a slight stretch before noticing Valkyr and Rhino standing nearby, he gave them a nod before walking towards the exit.

As they walked jax could hear richard's voice echo in his thoughts, carried over through transference.

"So what's the plan boss?"

"Boss?"

It was a good thing that warframes weren't able to have facial expressions or the surprise would be too clear on frost.

"You're the one who started this.. You're in charge."

"Oh, okay. Well. let's go find the closest grineer camp that is still occupied."

"Not going to be easy, they are idiots but they are still smart enough to run when sentients show up. Some times."

Veronica chuckled slightly over the link before talking as well.

"True. i hope you're ready for quite the run."

He'd nod before running off towards a grineer camp that was occupied before the sentient attack. From there they should be able to find the locations of the other camps.


	6. Chapter 6 Ambitions

It didn't take more than an hour for Jax, Richard and Veronica to arrive at the Grineer camp though when they did they were shocked to find that the Grineer had moved back in or more specifically didn't seem to have left at all, the clones either knew something they didn't or were incredibly stupid.

Regardless they decided to try and take it quietly much to Veronica's annoyance.

The Grineer had no idea what hit them as they were slowly killed off in silence, rhino snapped necks like they were paper and Veronica tore throats out, Jax though was spotted as he killed one of the Grineer and sped over to the one that spotted him as fast as he could, placing his hand over the Grineer's mouth before he could say anything, rather quickly the temperature dropped in the Grineer and it took mere seconds before he was frozen completely solid, rhino noticed the chilling end and shuddered for a moment.

"Remind me not to piss you-"

Before Richard could finish his words frost turned to him and flung his hand, large shards of ice being shot out as though fired from a gun, embedding themselves in a nearby Grineer that rhino had overlooked.

"Stay focused people."

It didn't take long before the last of the Grineer were quietly dealt with, leaving the contents of the camp for them to sift through without any interruption, luckily the Grineer didn't bother to conceal their maps of the area, Richard and Jax began to discuss their next move while Veronica took to standing guard, making sure that there was no uninvited guests.

"If we head towards their main base here there should be a commanding officer that we could-"

Jax sighed and interrupted his companion, stating that it would be too much of a risk for the trio to take.

Unfortunately, or possibly fortunately, they both saw Veronica come back inside, shoving a Grineer pilot down into the ground.

"I found this one wandering over to here, he's hurt and i'd bet he got shot down but who better to call in a ship?"

They were both speechless as they looked between the pilot and her until finally Jax merely nodded to her and began to walk out, surprising his companions.

"Jax? Are you sure? I mean she'll get what we want but… there's certain line-"

He turned to look back at Richard, through the rhino to the operator directly, a cold unnerving gaze that caused the often unshakable Richard to step back.

"I will not allow my sense of right or wrong to stand in my way… this is our chance to get a ship down here to reconnect with the relays. With the rest of the system. To get our people off of this world and get back into this fight. Now.. if you want to stop her. Than be damned sure that you can get the answers out of that pilot because i know i wont be able to."

The lack of response was a clear enough answer for Jax and he continued on outside, soon followed by Richard. It wasn't long before Grineer cries echoed out.

Jax tried his best to not acknowledge what he was hearing, he considered turning off the audio receptors of his frame but it would've been too dangerous. Even if the camp was cleared this was still a Grineer camp and there could be more reinforcements any moment.

"She'll have the answers in a minute or two.. Pilots aren't exactly prepared to resist torture, let alone red veil, hospitality." stated Richard, keeping his attention on Jax despite looking for any unwelcome guests.

"Good. i want to get this over with."

"...what happened to you? This isnt the same person from a few nights ago..."

Aside from the sounds of Veronica very hard at work extracting information from their prisoner silence echoed out, only disturbed by a passing wind before finally Richard got his answer.

"You saw what she did. That. is what happened. One of us lost everything. Ship. frame. Parts of her memories. Everything except us, and yet when it came down to it she rushed blindly forward to save us merely hours after her frame was destroyed, she should've been in cetus being treated, not taking on sentients, in person… we sit on our asses defending cetus and nothing else, rotting away in that city instead of pushing ourselves, instead of pushing everything back."

"Jax we have no ships. We don-"

He turned and looked at Richard again, a slight smirk showing.

"So? You've forgotten haven't you? We started with nothing, and we crushed the orokin. Lotus awoke us with nothing. And we became a force to be feared. To be respected. We have more foes now. We have more problems now. We are less. But we are awake now. We are not slumbering away in safety. I for one am done waiting around, i intend to show the origin system, to show the sentients that we are NOT out of this war. That we will break them like we did in the old times and reclaim our glory. Our power."

Richard felt like Jax was holding something back. Something simpler but decided to not press it, his chilly companion had obviously been rolling the thoughts around inside his head for some time now and the incident with Karin had kicked him over the edge.

"I hope that you know what you're doing. I'll follow you through to the end but this will make or break the last of us. Try not to forget that."

"I won't."

They both seemed to have missed the fact that there were no more screams and Veronica was coming out in her natural form, she seemed to be cleaning blood off of her hands.

"Won't what?"

They looked over to her and raised their brows. Despite them being much larger than her she still somehow remained prideful with a smirk showing.

"I won't mess this up. Now. you've got that information I take it?"

Her smirk turned into an annoyed grimace.

"Apparently since the sentients became so much more active in this area the Grineer have begun to employ a new policy. No ship is allowed to land on the plains regardless of who demands transport off world unless at specific times and specific locations… the good news is that a ship will be landing in the next ten minutes. The bad news. It's in the middle of the main Grineer base here… oh don't worry about the pilot. I've dealt with him."

They both looked at Jax, Veronica expecting him to call this mission and have them return to cetus, while Richard had a nagging feeling that he wasn't going to.

"Alright. We make our move than and rush the base."


	7. Chapter 7 Assault

It took quite a bit of effort for the tenno trio to reach the edge of the main Grineer base within a few minutes. Each of them needing a bit of time to recover as they were out of breath.

"O, kay. We've. Made it, now what?"

Before Veronica could get her answer they saw the Grineer ship break through the skies and come into view, a simple Grineer troop transport.

Jax looked at the pair than to the ship and finally down the small slow in front of them before starting to walk back.

"You two. Cause a scene. Leave the ship up to me. I'll make sure it wont be able to escape us."

They both looked at him confused as he got further and further away until finally Richard

shouted back asking him how he was planning to do that though the answer took them both by surprise.

Jax began to run back to them, flinging his hands forward and sending out a constant wave of frost from his hands, freezing the terrain in front of him until he reached the slope, and froze a platform forward through the air, sliding forward on top of that, heading straight towards the ship, leaving them staring.

"...is it just me… or has this all just proven that he has just been really lazy during our missions with him and let us do everything while he just sits back and chills?"

"V… i think it's just safer not to question it."

As the pair were contemplating the legitimacy of their companion's efforts during their past missions he himself had two thoughts running on repeat in his mind as he slid on the ice he was rapidly forming in front of himself.

"SHIT! DON'T FALL OFF!"

The sight of a tenno freezing the air in front of him above the Grineer base didn't go unnoticed however and more than a few Grineer began to open fire on him as an alarm went off but luckily the other two quickly reached the camp and started their own carnage. A feisty valkyr had began to slash and carve through the Grineer like they weren't there, one Grineer had the bright idea to try and run and while it helped for a short time she quickly leaped over to him like an oversized cat and smashed him into the ground before finishing him as well.

As Veronica had her fun pouncing the unprotected Grineer and leaving their entrails scattered to the winds Richard had a steadier approach. Having brought out his scindo battleaxe he began to cleave through the Grineer that came in his path. His frame seemingly unstoppable like a mountain as enemy weapons fire had no effect on him, Bullets bounced off of his iron flesh, rockets impacted and despite the flames that engulfed him he continued forward to carve through the enemy like a force of nature, one that a Grineer bombard made the mistake of encountering up close, the rocket was nearly able to blow the scindo out of rhino's grip which only caused him to move unnervingly fast, shoulder bashing into the enemy before smashing his foot down into the ground with enough force to lift the bombard up. The people at cetus could've sworn they overheard a cannon shot from the bang his impact caused, regardless as the bombard floated up the fear was clear on its face, rhino lifting the scindo up before slicing down. Cutting the bombard clean in half before he continued on forward to the next enemy.

The sound from a Rhino Stomp caught the attention of the other two Tenno that was with him though only for a moment as they both had to quickly return their attention to what they were doing, Veronica needing to jump back before leaping, through, an enemy, her claws tearing him apart as she continued forward before pouncing another unprepared meatbag.

Jax was having a somewhat more difficult time than his companions unfortunately, having never really used his abilities in such an unconventional manner quickly showed the hazards of constantly forming a practically unsupported platform in front of him to slide on, the platform soon enough cracked at the base and began to shatter, forcing him to take on a somewhat wave esc approach, sliding down rapidly to build up enough speed so he could slip back up and maintain some degree of elevation to reach the ship and despite the impressive sight the enemy under him were not all too appreciative as large chunks of solid ice fell down and smashed into them, crunching armor and splattering body parts everywhere, at least it was all cold so the Grineer 'may' be able to salvage some bits and pieces.

Unfortunately as the Frost continued forward with his unorthodox use of abilities he could feel the energy in his frame draining away and made a note to try and speed up some more to try and reach the ship faster, as much as he was forced to consider it, he didn't like the odds of commandeering a Grineer filled ship in his natural form.

One of those chunks quickly crunched a Grineer defensive turret that had popped up, Veronica got to stare down the multi barreled pain train aimed at her for a few seconds before it was crunched, it took her a few seconds to realize what had just happened before just writing it up to dumb luck and continuing forward to the next hapless victim.

Richard on the other hand had to put a bit more effort into making the raining chunks of ice work in his favor, he had taken a rocket to the face and was stumbling back for a moment as his iron skin had taken a rather large amount of abuse by now but it did force him to look up and see a particularly large chunk beginning to fall in his general direction, it took a moment before the one that shot him could feel an unnerving sense of dread flood him as rhino started to step back.

The bombard didn't understand why but the answer became clear, rhino charged forward and leaped to the chunk of ice, tackling it mid air and smashing it full force into the grineer, there, wasn't really a body left. The arms and legs seemed assorted around a large chunk of ice and rhino was standing back up. Seemingly admiring his work for a second before going to pick up his scindo and continue carving his way through the enemy who were much less inclined to try and get in his way and more than half of the grineer forces decided, no chance in the void are they going to just stick around anymore.

Now most sane humans, grineer or corpus or others would've likely not stuck around when Tenno showed up for a fight anyway, but after having a string of body parts laying everywhere almost like applying a fresh coat of red paint to the ground thanks to the enraged valkyr and seeing one of their own people have their body just, vanish, before getting replaced with a chunk of falling ice was definitely enough to cause even the most stubborn of beings to realize that retreat was the only sane outcome.

Jax had finally reached the ship as it was in the process of taking off and quickly leaped off of what was left of his platform, hitting the hull of the ship with a heavy thud but he had to slam his fist down hard and spread a thick layer of ice to grip onto as the ship began its ascent.

He was barely able to cover most of the ship's hull with a thick frost layer to grip as he moved down its side, trying to reach the access hatch before it really took off, propelling away from the plains of eidolon at an alarming pace, he occasionally came off from the ship only to smash back against its hull like some paper caught in the wind, never before had he been grateful for the incredibly durability of frames in general.

The ship eventually slowed down a bit but he was not all too happy for the reason. It was still ascending and was breaking atmosphere.

Jax clawed his way forward, eventually reaching the hatch and popping it open, quickly thinning the air inside the troop section of the transport, he expected gunfire as he continued forward and forced his way inside but the Grineer pilots sitting in a different section, just accepted that it was an unfortunate accident of their, magnificent engineering having a glitch, they remotely sealed the hatch while their unwelcome guest had some, fun, dealing with the few troops inside the ship, they were mostly wounded at least and were dealt with quickly.

As he sat there, the lone Tenno put his face in his hands and sighed.

"Well. you're on the ship tough guy….. Now what in the void are you going to do?"

Back on the planet though Veronica and Richard looked at each other for a bit "I didn't see any body falling. You think he made it?"

"I don't know… let's just look around till dusk than head back."

She nodded to him though looked back to where she saw the transport last and eventually just shook her head, accepting that he either succeeded in getting onboard or died in the vacuum of space, or fell off and got smacked into a mountain side for his troubles. Regardless he would either show up again. Or his sacrifice would've been what they needed to return the spark to the other Tenno.


	8. Chapter 8 Cold Halls

Jax sat in the Grineer transport. And waited. And waited. And sighed. And waited. He decided though after what felt like an hour to try and pry open the pilot's cockpit but after he reached it and found that they had some form of energy barrier, likely some kind of a Corpus adapted design, now while he did enjoy the idea of trying to freeze the occupants, that wouldn't work too well when they were supposed to land the ship and not crash it into the enemy.

He eventually sat back down and contemplated where he was going, probably some Grineer Galleon, he didn't know what would be worse though, being stuck in a Galleon, or a Grineer station, either way he knew that fighting wasn't going to be an option and he'd be stuck in a brig.

Those poor Grineer.

And just as he expected the ship finally entered a landing bay, one of the large doors on the side of the transport opening up and the sight of a pair of Grineer was the first thing that hit Jax, what did take him by surprise was, it was only the two of them, in a second he decided to quickly bolt forward, grab them by their mouths and smash them into the ground as hard as he could while keeping his grip, making sure neither could alert others before freezing them solid and dumping them in the ship, closing the door after to make sure that they aren't found immediately.

He was about to head over to the cockpit and try to figure out the archaic nightmare of piloting a Grineer vessel when he got an, odd, transmission. Most of it was garbled and incomprehensible gibberish that seemed to have been scrambled over comms.

"Operator!"

The desperate tone of it had him frozen in place, he eventually turned and looked back to the rest of the bay and realized that, it should really not be this empty, in fact the faces of the two Grineer that entered the ship were almost panicked before he was seen.

His curiosity burned over and he decided to explore, intending see what was up.

He very carefully wandered forward to the door leading further inside. Looking to his side and sighing in incredible frustration as he realized that being ragdoll of the year on a ship leaving orbit resulted in him losing his weapons, luckily he had some extras, just not ones he liked.

After procuring a Kraken pistol and Karak rifle he finally continued on to the door and headed inside, he pondered why these weapons that were usually on Grineer troops in other areas of the system were on two ordinary grunts on a Galleon but his attention was soon enough refocused on a nearby body.

He moved over to inspect it but was, confusing, the corpse seemed reasonably fresh, probably having been lying here just a few days, yet there wasn't any sort of clear injury from a fight, after a few more moments of examining Jax realized that this Grineer had suffocated.

As he got up though he froze again, another transmission seemed to have come from somewhere and got picked up by him.

"They will burn."

To say that this was thoroughly creeping Jax out would be a large understatement but he knew that he needed to keep going, whatever was going on needed to be found out.

Finally leaving the corpse he continued forward

Jax was not a new blood in regards to Grineer design, in fact he was quite familiar with it. Having his ship found and being stuck on a standard Grineer Galleon while his ship was forced to retreat to minimum safe distance to avoid cannon fire, did have its advantage, it sucked sure, but he could get anywhere on a Galleon since then and he decided to check engineering.

What he found sent a chill up his already cold spine, there were no Bombards, there were no troops, there were no gunners, there was, no one, not a single Grineer was in sight….

The drives were still working, the main engines were still warm but there was just no one around.

After overcoming the unnerving silence of the engineering section Jax finally went down to the nearby console to access it, expecting to get very frustrated with security systems and Grineer data structure but as he tapped a few buttons the system was, open, there was no security and the system was responsive as though overhauled by corpus.

What he found though only made him reconsider just leaving, there were datalogs, something vented entire compartments of the ship. The bridge was flooded with radiation and other, none healthy incidents had occurred. the only living people aside from himself, were the ones that he had butchered in the hangar.

"What the he-"

The screen that he was using suddenly flickered for a bit before turning black with a pair of ominous red eyes and the text 'I SEE YOU.' appeared under it.

Jax had never grabbed a rifle and unloaded a full clip into something than that very moment, destroying the terminal, the screen, and filling the surroundings with quite a few rounds, his only saving grace was that the terminal was dedicated to any essential system.

The sound of an alarm blared out above him and he knew that the ship was locking down the room he was in, he had no idea what the hell was happening to the ship. But he knew one thing, he was going to be damned in the void before he would be stopped on a Galleon.

He rushed quickly towards a nearby vent and shot out the fan in the way, quickly diving into the vent afterwards and crawling on through to the next room, lockdowns were just an annoyance to Tenno as a whole.

As he continued forward he considered a few different options, the first would be the obvious one, he could go for the bridge and face whatever was onboard.

The second was to go for the Grineer equivalent of a computer core and pluck control away directly.

And the third was by far the most drastic of his options, he could go straight for the ship reactor and blow it, it wouldn't be the first, in fact he had it down to an art style back in the day when it came to sabotaging enemy ships.

Unfortunately he realized something else… this Galleon had no Grineer left onboard...the transport he was on was likely meant to take troops over to try and reclaim it. A full Grineer Galleon with him and admittedly an unknown amount of enemies that would most likely not have any reinforcements. All he had to do was deal with him and this ship would be his. Would be the Tenno's…

Luckily a portion of his brain returned to some degree of level headedness and he decided to ensure that if he would have some extra insurance, thus having him head towards the reactor room.

As Jax continued forward on the Galleon in orbit Karin had finally been able to wake up, much to the relief and surprise of trin, the Tenno woke up, gasping for air and shooting upright, slapping trin's hand away in the process.

* * *

Trin looked at Karin for a while, eventually placing her hand on the Tenno's shoulder which was able to bring her mind racing back to the here and now, looking slowly over to Trin.

"Welcome back Karin. You were out for quite-"

Trin was unfortunately interrupted by her trying to force herself to stand up. It wasn't very effective and karin fell back onto her ass rather quickly.

She was quickly reminded why she didn't like treating Karin in the past.


	9. Chapter 9 Not Alone

Jax was methodical as he walked through the corridors trying to avoid any kind of choke point that he knew would be on the galleon as he continued his march forward.

While that did help him in getting further he realized too late that he was being followed by something and as he turned around a corridor a pair of arc traps just turned on, shocking him intensely, the output of the mines and the pair combined was enough to paralyze him long enough for a group of grineer latcher explosives to roll over and clamp onto his frame, exploding violently shortly after and blasting him forward onto the ground next to a console where the same red eyes from before showed up with the text 'you will not survive.' under it.

With a pained grown he got back to his feet, his frame's shielding having been overwhelmed by the blast and he could feel that something was indeed broken now, he looked over to see what it was and quickly smashed the console screen afterwards.

The latcher mines had blown a hole into his shoulder, it still worked but the insides were exposed, he couldn't take another blast like that or he'd lose the arm entirely.

Jax formed a thick layer of ice over the wound, it would hinder his use of his arm but it would protect him at least a bit longer, but after the layer was applied he could hear other grineer machines roll towards him, likely the bigger ones that were meant to crash into him, he quickly began to run off further into the ship, trying to head in the general direction of the reactor room.

No matter how fast Jax ran he couldnt get away from the rollers, they were much faster than the traditional grineer models that he had encountered in the past and it got to the point where he couldn't keep running.

Jax flung his hand forward to send a burst of frost out, coating the ground with it as he jumped and turned in mid air to face the rollers, as his momentum carried him forward to the ice he spotted the rollers and fired on them, he was shocked as he saw that they tried to dodge his shots, not getting success but it was just not right.

Despite the severity of the situation Jax remained calm and focused, he continued to fire on the rollers and destroying them even as his feet planted onto the ice and he slid further. He had been able to destroy a few before turning and planting his foot on the deck plating and continuing his sprint as if he had practiced the motion for years.

A spot of salvation showed itself as he saw a gap, he just had to fire on the mines that were placed near the opening.

Jax fired on the mines before leaping, slamming hard on a platform, he quickly got back up though and fired on the rollers to ensure that they wouldn't be a threat for him later.

They quickly exploded from the gunfire that he was delivering. When the last one was destroyed he sighed and sat down, lying down for a moment.

"...what the heck is happening here…"

Jax just sat there for a while, somewhat wishing he had incorporated a regeneration function into his frame as he looked over to the injury he had suffered, it was pretty bad but he would survive.

Having had his moment to recover Jax forced himself back up and continued, trying to stick to vents, hoping that they would be out of the reach of those damned rollers.

* * *

As Jax was busy being hero Karin was trying to keep from snapping at someone.

Veronica and Richard had both returned and given the news of Jax's sudden exit. They couldn't find a body but for some reason Richard was sure that he had made it, no one really understood his reason for believing so hard in it, Karin had received some minor treatment to get back on her feet and had overheard what happened shortly after.

Everyone expected anger from her but it was different, she was still infuriated and Jax's actions but there was something else lying under that rage, something that no one really could figure out.

It didn't help that she couldn't recall what happened, whenever someone asked her how she did what she did she told them the truth, she saw everything turn dark and felt like she was wrapped by something, something that had her feel warm, safe, like nothing mattered, she was shocked however when she was told what she had done, though she gave Trin a very grim look when she asked her some pointed questions.

Everyone expected her to go out and train or hunt or something to get herself busy, instead she returned to the place where she snapped, sitting down and looking to where she saw that tenno about to be ended, hoping that if she focused intently on the memory she would, find something, anything.

In the end however there was nothing, she couldn't feel that warmth, that protection and the frustration got the better of her.

She shouted out in anger and flung her hand to a side, a rush of power filled her, sliding over to her arm as a wave of bright white burst forth from her palm, blasting the ground apart where she had aimed, her hand shaking from the energy that had surged through it.

The brightness from the blast she sent out was enough to blind her, though as she turned away she could feel a gently and familiar grip on her shaking arm, it wasn't long but it was long enough for her to freeze, whatever this was there was a part of her that didn't want to end but it had to and the feeling faded away by the time she could see yet there was no one near her.

Her hand had stopped shaking when the feeling passed.

She couldnt explain what had happened. She even wondered if her imagination had just played with her for a moment but she accepted that she had gotten somewhere.

Veronica was on the verge of talking to her before she sent out the blast of void energy though when she saw the girl snap she decided it was, not the best time.

She was on the verge of backing away when she spotted something for a split second, something that had her freeze in place for a moment before bolting back into Cetus to find Trin and talk to her.

On her way Veronica was stopped as a familiar voice came from her side.

"Hey kiddo, been a long time."

She turned very carefully while reaching for her guns only to see herself sitting on a barrel with glowing eyes.

"You…"

The replica just giggled and leaned back a bit. "Been a long time… things have changed huh?"  
Veronica focused intensely on it, a bubbling anger rising in her "what do you want?"

"Want? Me? Now that is a good question kiddo. Though is that really the right one to be asking?"

She looked at it a bit unsure about what he was implying but she impulsively pulled her gun, a fairly simple Bolto and aimed it at its forehead.

"Stop messing around with me! Why are you here?"

It smiled as it looked back at her, tilting its head slightly. "There's a storm coming, the Void is rumbling… what will you do?"

Before she could ask what it meant there was a loud crack of thunder from beyond the walls of Cetus that drew her attention, a howling wind passed by her as dark, heavy storm clouds gathered above.

Veronica slowly turned back to try and continue her discussion but there was no one there, just her, a few Ostrons started to notice her from a distance however but shook it off as just, Tenno behavior as she slowly lowered her weapon.


End file.
